Smallpox has had a major impact on world history, not least because indigenous populations of regions where smallpox was non-native, such as the … Image of a statue of Edward Jenner vaccinating a baby The earliest physical evidence of smallpox is the pustular rash on the mummified body of Pharaoh Ramesses V of Egypt, who died in 1157 BC. "But some weeks later a consultant at the East Glamorgan Hospital in Church Village [in Rhondda Cynon Taf] fell ill and was diagnosed with smallpox. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. “It’s been a little race since we were going to school,” said 30-year-old George. Some 19 people died and 900,000 were vaccinated after a traveller from Pakistan arrived in Cardiff and was diagnosed with the disease. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. Usually a mild case of smallpox developed, giving lifelong immunity afterwards. he Spanish inadvertently owe much of their success in conquering the Aztecs and Incas in Mexico in the 16th century to smallpox. It is highly contagious and no treatment was ever found. "There are two really big mysteries," said Mr Stewart, who is senior lecturer in radio journalism at the University of Glamorgan in Treforest, Rhondda Cynon Taf. Returning crusaders provided a way for smallpox to spread through Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries. In all, 12 people caught smallpox and two of them, including the Mexican, died. Then again, the small bouts of panic did help some. The disease was cornered, with no vulnerable hosts nearby to spread to. Over six million people were vaccinated within a month at hundreds of vaccination stations in hospitals, firehouses, and police stations. He said his work unveiled some fascinating accounts. Smallpox was not diagnosed until the epidemic was well under way, and Tito's Communist government took draconian measures to bring the outbreak under … Worried that a smallpox epidemic would spiral out of control in the densely populated city, the health authorities decided to act pre-emptively and mass vaccinate New Yorkers. Rumours persisted patients were escaping quarantine at Bevendean Isolation Hospital by leaping over the wall. The outbreak began in January 1962. Are you sure you want to delete this comment? "Shuka Mia was sent to an isolation hospital and survived. On New Year’s Day 1951 200 people lined up outside the Royal York buildings to be vaccinated at an emergency centre there.  © Other members of her family were also affected by smallpox. 'The working day was from when the sun came up to when it went down. The earliest credible evidence of smallpox is found in the Egyptian mummies of people who died some 3,000 years ago. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. It was fear of these kinds of epidemics that encouraged developed countries to fund the smallpox eradication campaign. As the world's population grew, and travel increased, so the virus that Edward Jenner called the "speckled monster" grasped every opportunity to colonise the world.  © Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by one of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. There were no official announcements, however, until a two-year period of intense surveillance was completed, making sure the disease was finally gone. At the peak of the outbreak 19 men working 13-hour days were engaged in a ruthless search to find anyone who so much as glanced at someone with smallpox. By 1986, routine vaccination had ceased in all countries. Find out more about how the BBC is covering the. He was shocked when he reached the smallpox hospital in Dakovica. In 1947 a Mexican businessman, unaware he was incubating smallpox, travelled by bus to New York. Muzza fell ill and because of the seriousness of his condition was treated in a series of hospitals, ending up in Belgrade on 10th March. ...almost the entire Yugoslavian population of 18 million people was vaccinated. “Any irresponsible rumour-spreading could do great harm.” In 1801 he wrote 'It now becomes too manifest to admit of controversy, that the annihilation of the Small Pox, the most dreadful scourge of the human species, must be the final result of this practice.'. It turns out he got it through a woman in the Rhondda who died in childbirth who he had treated. It wiped out huge numbers of them. The eradication teams also actively hunted down the disease, travelling with a 'recognition card' showing a baby with smallpox, to explain to people what the illness looked like. From there it swept into China in the 1st century AD and reached Japan in the 6th century. In September 1978 Janet Parker, a medical photographer at the University of Birmingham, was accidentally infected with smallpox and later died. “One can bring a disease to this country before any infection has had time to develop.”. In the late 1990s the public discovered that we still have reason to fear this virus. The first Dusanka knew about the epidemic was when health officials turned up at her home on 23rd March to take her in to quarantine. Enforced mass quarantine was instigated to stop the virus in its tracks. The morning after Muzza's death Dusanka came down with measles and was forced to take a few weeks off work. As a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles. Smallpox. “We organised concerts, saw films, had whist drives and table tennis competitions.”. This site is part of Newsquest's audited local newspaper network. Get involved with the news in your community, This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice. Mr Stewart said the archive also highlights the fear that people felt about catching the disease. But this was dispelled when it turned out the perpetrators were the Holmwood brothers who lived in a cottage on the hospital grounds. Theatre attendances were crippled by whispers of audience members taken ill. On one particularly bad night, one comedian implored the sparse crowd to move to the front rows to make things “matey”. Nearly a million people were vaccinated following the south Wales smallpox outbreak, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-18365385. A Gannett Company. Taxi driver Harold Bath, 53, had died of smallpox in Bevendean Isolation Hospital. Read about our approach to external linking. "We know how smallpox came to Cardiff but nobody there became ill, although a mass vaccination programme was launched. An online archive has been launched which details the stories of people affected by a smallpox outbreak in south Wales in 1962. The World Health Assembly has passed resolutions to destroy the stocks, but each time the date of destruction has been postponed to allow ongoing research. “We are glad to be free again but we haven’t really been bored,” said 23-year-old Molly Deasey. Having never encountered smallpox before, the terrified doctors had abandoned their patients.

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